Beaten
by thedayyoufindoutwhy
Summary: Dan becomes worried when Phil comes home acting strangely. Phan. One-Shot.


**Ignore the casual milk reference. Totally not intentional.**

"Motherfucker." The frozen screen of my Mac stares up at me, mocking me with its stillness. That end of the world feeling you get when you haven't saved something you spent the last 5 hours working on washes over me. "Come on, baby. You can do it," I mutter as I caress the screen, as if that would keep it from acting like a twat. It makes a frustrated buzzing noise before returning to normal. I heave out a relieved sigh and go to save it when my phone starts ringing from across the room. I pull myself out of my chair with a begrudging sigh.

"Hello?" I answer, using this as an opportunity for a much needed food break as I'm up anyways.

"Hi, Dan," Phil's voice responds.

"What's up?" I ask.

"Just heading back from Starbucks." A quick glance into the nearly empty fridge confirms all my fears. I want chocolate pudding, but that requires milk, which we currently don't have. My life is unnecessarily difficult sometimes.

"That's where you went? Get me anything?" I close the fridge, resigning myself to huger, and put a pot of water on the stove for tea.

"Uh—no. I'll be home soon, alright?" His voice quivers near the end, and I stop short.

"Is everything alright, Phil?" I hold my free hand close to the stove top, trying to take some warmth into my frozen hands. The cold, rainy day seems to be sucking all the warmth out of the flat. Phil's probably just freezing to death.

"Yeah. Fine." But it's there again; that faint break that tells me there's something more wrong than the weather. I know Phil. And I know he won't want to worry me, but it's a little late for that.

"Alright. See you soon."

"Bye." He disconnects before I can respond. I make myself a mug of tea, more to be used as a hand warmer than a drink, and head back to my room.

Where I see that my laptop has died. And I forgot to save it. Fuck.

**0.0.0**

The sound of the door clicking open shakes me out of my re-editing zone. Phil must be home.

"Phil!?" I shout out as I hear him making his way up the stairs.

"Yeah?"

"Can you come here for a minute?" There's a moment of silence before his footsteps start heading towards me. He leans against the doorway, waiting for me to say something. He's sopping wet and shivering, but I can immediately tell there's something seriously wrong. As hard as he tries, Phil cannot lie to me. The slump of his shoulders, the way his body is slanted away from me, the care he takes in averting my eyes; it all tells me he's putting on an act.

"Can you hurry up? I'm dripping on the carpet." Half of his mouth twitches up in a grin to show me he's joking.

"What's wrong?" I ask him. He looks up at me, his wet hair clinging to his face.

"Nothing! That caramel macchiato is making me tired is all." He's lying and I know it as well as I know my own heart beat. I think he can tell too, because he's out of the room before I can say another word.

I try to go back to editing and give him his space like a good flat-mate should, but I can't focus with my brain conjuring up all of these horrible things that could be wrong with Phil, so I get up and head to his room.

"Phil?" I call, knocking lightly on his door. "Can I come in?" I gently push it open. Phil's sitting with his back to me, his damp clothes hugging his thin frame. He sits up a little straighter but doesn't say anything. I walk around his bed to face him. It's when I see him close up that I notice the slight discoloration around his left eye.

"What happened?" I ask, gently running my thumb over it. His body trembles, whether from my touch or his soaking clothes, I can't tell.

"Nothing," he whispers, pulling the sleeves of his jumper over his fists.

"Phil…"

"I'm fine." His voice is small. All of his usual loud, occasionally to obnoxious optimism has leaked out of him. He looks tired; like the shell of what he usually is. It's striking to see how exceedingly not-fine he is.

"No. You're not." I kneel so that we're face to face and take his trembling hands in mine. They're tinged blue from the cold, which makes me worry about his physical state almost as much as his emotional. He lets out a breathy sigh.

"I don't want to talk about it, Dan." He stands up and very gently tries to pull his hands from my grasp. I stand with him, tightening my hold on him. I'm afraid that if I let go, he'll think I don't care.

"Please Phil?" I mutter, interlacing my warm fingers through his cold ones. I cradle his hands carefully against my chest. He grips onto me tight, his fingernails digging into my skin, before letting go to slip his arms around me. After a moment of delay, I grab him around the shoulders and pull him closer to me, eliminating all space in-between our bodies. He buries his face in my shoulder, still trembling.

"Some guys said I was gay and beat me up." His voice is so quiet I think for a moment that I heard wrong. It instantly becomes clear to me that he's not when I realize how much of his body weight I'm bearing. He can barely stand. I want to communicate to him the shock and pain I'm feeling, but all I can manage to do is run my fingers through his black hair.

"I'm fine though. I'll be fine," he says, pulling away from me, which is such a Phil thing to say. I don't think people realize how strong he is. Phil is the most selfless person I have ever met. No matter what, he will always put everyone else above himself. It's moments like these that I realize that if I am gold, then Phil is the Sun. He outshines me in every conceivable way.

"You should report this to the police," I say.

"It's fine, Dan. I didn't really see much. I just want to go to sleep and forget it happened." He meets my eyes; his a brilliant shade of cerulean next to my plain brown. If it were up to me, we'd be on our way to A&E where I'd make him file an official report. But it's not up to me; it's up to Phil whose very being is radiating exhaustion.

"At least let me help you," I say. Before he can respond, I stand up and head to his wardrobe, picking out a pair of sweatpants and a t-shirt and tossing them gently next to him on the bed. "I'll make you some cocoa while you change," I tell him. He gives me a tiny, thankful smile as I head towards the kitchen.

Making hot chocolate is a mindless enough task to allow my mind to wander to places I don't particularly want it to go.

I keep seeing flashes of a group of faceless men shouting slander at Phil and dragging him somewhere quiet. I watch them throw him against the wall, laughing when he falls. I see them slamming their fists into my Phil as he takes it, refusing to hurt someone, even if it is in self-defense. I watch them get bored of him and walk away, leaving him alone. Alone.

I realize that he probably called me earlier because he was afraid they would come back and he wanted someone to know where he was if that happened. I should have done something sooner. I should have made him tell me what was wrong so I could have gone to him. He should not have had to walk home by himself. I should not have left him by himself.

I should have done something to stop this.

Each thought hits me like a blow to the stomach. I wipe stray tears from my eyes, cursing myself for being so weak.

I take the steaming mug back up to Phil's room. Hot chocolate isn't going to solve any of his problems, but making it helps me to feel useful.

When I open the door, he's twisted awkwardly in his shirt, struggling to get it off. He notices me and gives me that little smile he gets when he's completely failed at something. I place the mug on his bedside table and go to help him. Carefully, I pull the neck of the shirt over his head. He meets my eyes, his teeth still chattering slightly. I roll the rest of it off of his arms, discarding the drenched jumper on the floor. It's only then that I see the full extent of his injuries.

"Jesus Christ," I mutter under my breath. His entire chest is mottled with fresh contusions, already shockingly dark against his pale skin. A scrape on his ribs is slightly swollen, making me worry whether or not he's broken anything. I gently run my finger tips over each of his injuries, taking silent inventory of them. I want to give the people who did this to him a matching set.

"It looks worse than it is," he says.

"You're lying." I pick up the dry shirt and help him into that, then shrug out of my own sweatshirt and pull it over him, hoping the body heat will help to warm him up. Something about the sight of him wincing and shivering in my sweatshirt breaks me.

"I'm sorry," I choke out. His eyebrows knit together. He looks like he's about to say something, but I interrupt. "You call me if anyone ever lays a hand on you again, alright?" I demand, cupping his beautiful face in my hands.

"I don't need you to protect me." He gently wipes a tear from my cheek and I'm stricken by how right he is. Here's Phil, who has literally been beaten, and I'm the one falling apart.

"No. You don't. But I cannot stand to see you like this. I'm afraid of what I might do if I ever come across the mother fuckers who—" I break off, conscious of the way my anger is taking hold of my body. I hold his face carefully in my hands, my eyes focusing momentarily on the bruising around his eye. "Promise me." He averts his eyes and gently pulls my hands from his face. "Please, Phil. If I let anything like this happen again, it will kill me."

"It's not your—"

"But it feels like it. Promise me." He holds my hands tightly, resting them on his knees.

"I promise." I kiss his forehead. It doesn't matter to me that I haven't been acting like a friend should act. _My_ Phil has been hurt and the pain of knowing that is worse than anything I've ever felt. I feel like I am personally responsible for every bruise on his perfect body. For a long moment, I just stand there, my hands fiercely intertwined with Phil's, my lips resting on his smooth forehead. The moment is broken when a shudder wracks through him. His teeth clack together, and I pull back.

I look down at his thick denim jeans clinging to his thighs, then back at him.

"You don't have to—"

"It's not a big deal, Phil," I say. I try to ignore the blush coloring his cheeks as I loop his arms around my neck to stand him up. Quickly, I unbutton his jeans and slide them off of him. I try my hardest to ignore the occasional bruising on his thighs, but my eyes are drawn to the ugly smears of purple. I pick up the dry pants, letting him steady himself against my shoulders as I slip them over his legs.

Sometime while I was doing this, he stopped shivering.

"Thank you, Dan," he whispers, his arms looping around my neck again as I stand up.

I suddenly become painfully aware of his hot breath against my skin. My hands linger at his waist steadying him. His smell is dampened by the scent of rain and blood, but it's still there. Still strong. And so, so addictive. My world narrows down from video, Phil, anger to Phil, Phil, Phil. He is my everything.

Like a gravitational pull, our lips begin to drift together. And not for one second do I think of him as my best friend, or my flat-mate, or as anything other thanmy Phil. _My_ Phil who has never really been anything else.

And when our lips meet, it feels like coming home. The kiss is gentle. It's full of sweetness and unspoken promises. I let myself melt into that kiss. I let myself pour out into that kiss so that Phil does not have to doubt for a second that I want this. Because I do. Where my other kisses have been fire and ice, this is the feeling of summer sun hitting your face and standing at the edge of a cliff and drowning and dying and living and everything all coming together at once seamlessly and completely.

There is no room for doubt. I love Phil. That is the only absolute truth I have ever known.

And when he pulls gently away, resting his forehead on mine, it does not feel like he has ended the kiss, but like he's put it on hold. To be continued.

"I'm not gay," he whispers.

"Oh," I whisper back. I understand him though. I'm not attracted to guys, but I can't deny the fact that my entire being is tuned to Phil's frequency.

"I think I'm Dan-sexual," he says, turning his freezing cold face into my neck. And I don't really mind, which is weird. It's nice to be touching him. More than nice.

"Well that's good. Because I'm pretty sure I'm Phil-sexual." I feel him smile against the skin of my neck, a real smile this time. And that makes me smile too.

"Can you stay here tonight?" I pull gently away from him, brushing a kiss across his cheek.

"Of course." I pull the covers back for him, helping his broken body into bed. He lies down in the space I've created for him.

When I go to turn off the lights, I hear Phil's voice, small and uncertain: "Dan?"

"I'll be right back," I say, giving him a gentle smile. I switch off all the lights in the flat and grab my duvet before returning to Phil. I settle it carefully over him. My body slides into the space he's left for me as I search for his blue eyes in the dark. He scoots himself closer to me and buries his face in my chest. I gently wrap my arms around him, making sure to be careful with him.

"Dan?"

"Yeah, Phil?"

"I think I accidentally fell in love with you." I turn my face to kiss his damp hair, completely unable to contain my smile.

"I think I love you, too." With the weight of those words in my ears and Phil in my arms, I fall asleep just as easily as I fell in love.


End file.
